BREAKING: Cambridge Analytica shuts U.S. and U.K. operations after Facebook scandal https://t.co/8WDVUrR1Cu
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) May 2, 2018
TIME FOR A STRATEGIC REBRANDING, BOYZ!
Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that worked for the Trump campaign and had come under attack for its use of personal Facebook data in other elections, announced on Wednesday it would cease operations and declare bankruptcy in the United States and United Kingdom.
The firm said it had lost clients because of revelations in March that it had improperly obtained the personal information of millions of Facebook users. “It is no longer viable to continue operating the business,” Cambridge Analytica said in a statement.
Cambridge Analytica defended its use of Facebook, saying it was “vilified for activities that are not only legal, but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas.”
The decision by the firm comes as it continues to face potential investigations and sanctions from regulators around the world for charges…
Cambridge Analytica was born of as an American offshoot of London-based SCL Group, whose affiliates had worked in campaigns around the world, including Kenya, Nigeria and India. Initial funding for Cambridge Analytica came from Republican financier Robert Mercer, who invested at least $10 million in the company as it sought to help exclusively GOP candidates across a range of U.S. congressional and state legislative elections beginning in 2014. His daughter Rebekah Mercer was the company’s president for a time. Neither Mercer responded to requests for comment on Wednesday…
Even as it maintained its innocence, Cambridge Analytica acknowledged that the “siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers.” SCL Elections, its parent, as well as Cambridge Analytica began insolvency proceedings in the UK, and said they would soon start bankruptcy proceedings in the United States.
the scene at Cambridge Analytica pic.twitter.com/e7s99j446n
— zeddy (@Zeddary) May 2, 2018
Cambridge Analytica and SCL group cannot be allowed to delete their data history by closing. The investigations into their work are vital
— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) May 2, 2018
Remember. SCL & Cambridge Analytica are disinformation specialists. What exactly are they shutting down & why? https://t.co/KKsBYkCCTz
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) May 2, 2018
#CambridgeAnalytica isn’t closed, CambridgeAnalytica is now #Emerdata. Wheatland, Nix, and the Mercers are company officers. https://t.co/StCtbFz8uT
— ????????? ?????????? (@OpWolverines) May 2, 2018
Basically they are just doing the very same Erik Prince do when his war crime companies becomes infamous when their unlawful actions and war crimes reaches daylight.
Changing the company's name, but running business as usual.— Mr Tw@ttertainer™ (@MrTweetertainer) May 2, 2018
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t know the appropriate UK laws, but I suspect the British government is not going to shrug and go ‘Oh, well!’
rikyrah
Glad folks are telling the truth. They are not gone. Just have a new name.?
Raoul
Oh, yeah, rebranding. That’ll save democracy.
Roger Moore
@Raoul:
Saving democracy is not on their to-do list. Destroying it is.
trollhattan
@Frankensteinbeck:
Indeed.
Steeplejack (phone)
Breaking from me: I’m attending the Phillies-Nationals game tonight. Already into my first overpriced beer and preparing to meet some friends at the gate in a while.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Even if that were true (I’m not familiar with campaign laws enough to know), that still doesn’t make it right. Justice and the law aren’t often the same thing.
debbie
@Frankensteinbeck:
There’s still a Serious Fraud office, so they won’t get off the hook.
oatler.
We’re all just corpuscles in the bloodstream of The Corporation.
>beer belch<
debbie
I wonder where the rebrand will be operating?
oatler.
Wot Putin don’t see the chef gets away with
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack (phone): Breaking from me: I’m finishing an overpriced beer at Logan airport before my flight to Stockholm.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Lucky puppy. I love Stockholm. Happy jet trails.
How late is daylight there now? Am hearing it’s light a long time in Germany these days …
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
If this were an ideal world, I’d want each Mercer waterboarded for what they know, followed by a quiet basement trip and anonymous burial. Do it out to about 3 generations, just to be sure.
They’re even more evil than the Murdochs and the Kochs, who are only interested in money.
Steve in the SFO
@Steeplejack (phone): I saw the Nationals put up 15 against the Giants one week ago today. Needless to say, Max Sherzer didn’t need that much cushion.
trollhattan
Maybe Cole can report back from an event for the convicted not-quite-but-actually mass murderer running for senate. He’s a pistol.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Mostly true—harvesting data as they did was technically a violation of Facebook’s TOS, but all totally legal. (Except the maybe fronting the data to Russia part.)
JPL
Well just fk.. he’s tweeting again Go to bed Trump, just go to bed.
ruemara
It probably is to limit any asset damages since I doubt Emerdata is named in any investigation. I also doubt the people in charge are named as well.
Same evil clowns with a shiny new label.
Shana
@Steeplejack (phone): Are you getting a half smoke from Ben’s?
Kathleen
@debbie: In “Helliburton” (Hell rebranded).
MJS
@Steeplejack (phone): You may want to either take it easy on the beer, or hop a jet for Florida. The team you’ll be seeing tonight is the Pirates. The Phillies are at the Marlins. ; )
debbie
@trollhattan:
No self-respecting miner would vote for Blankenship.
TenguPhule
@debbie:
They traded that away when they supported Trump.
NotMax
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. While we install a new curtain over here.”
TenguPhule
Breaking at Wapo.
Here comes the first litmus test of the current SC.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: I guess I’ll find out tomorrow.
Baud
@Steeplejack (phone):
That is breaking news, since the Nats are playing the Pirates and don’t play the Phillies until Friday.
Baud
@TenguPhule: Stop it with your identity politics.
Elizabelle
@TenguPhule: I take it Iowa is NOT on the list for possible new Amazon HQ?
Aleta
@Elizabelle: @Gin & Tonic: The buildings by the water in that long slow twilight. Amazing. In the summer we’d drive out of town to watch the whole sunset. Then drive back, not that far, and the sun would rise before we made it home. Though I was once there in the winter, and it was just brutally raw where we stayed.
NotMax
@Baud
What’s a little burp in the space-time continuum among friends?
;)
debbie
@Baud:
That overpriced beer must have gone to Steep’s head already!
Baud
I think the new company should just go ahead and call themselves Ratfuckers, Inc.
I'll be Frank
LLC’s are cheap and easily aborted. The bankruptcy part is annoying.
debbie
Reposting from the dead thread about women’s equality because I didn’t see it being addressed: SHS, though ostensibly a woman, is still a dick.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Next you’ll tell me my flight is going to Oslo instead of Stockholm.
Elizabelle
@Aleta: Wow. That’s on the 4 year bucket list. I was there when the sun was setting at about 2:00 p.m. Still magical, whatever the light conditions.
scav
Emerdata. Another moment where French bleeding though is ever so apropos. I read it as Emmerder-data.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The beer may be overpriced, but it’s really strong stuff.
Bill Arnold
It should never be referred to as Emerdata. The press should refer to it as “Emerdata (formerly CambridgeAnalytica)”, or when feeling feisty, “”Emerdata (formerly the infamous CambridgeAnalytica alleged to have engaged in …)”
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Maybe they sell absinthe too.
NotMax
WaPo link.
Bill Arnold
Jerry Brown Calls EPA Chief ‘Outlaw Pruitt’
Well done, Jerry Brown. :-)
May Mr Pruit’s sleep (continue to?) be disturbed by realistic nightmares, about a new dustbowl in Oklahoma, and much much worse.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
That’s not a drink, that’s what you use to polish the silver.
Baud
@NotMax: His numbers won’t be worse than Hillary’s this way.
NotMax
Dismal would be an understatement.
TenguPhule
Ige asks Trump to declare federal disaster after April floods damage 532 homes
Would anyone like to wager on the chances of Trump obliging the Democratic governor of a Democratic state that will never ever vote for him?
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
What, did they just copy and paste from the last one? And the one before that? //
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
Has he not been paying any attention at all to the last 15 months?
raven
@NotMax: But but, if we leave all those people died for . . . .nevermind.
Raoul
@Roger Moore: Yup, I’m crystal clear on that. My cynicism was because CA should be pounded into the ground and the shards thrown into a volcano. Rebranding, and having Mercers as board members means the evil just got rearranged.
Baud
@raven: I recently watched a good episode of Seal Team where they were in Afghanistan. May never have aired if we had left.
TenguPhule
Fuck it. Burn it down. Burn it all down.
House Republicans nominate Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize
raven
@Baud: Seals, aren’t they Navy? Check the map and tell me where there is water in Afghanistan.
Baud
@raven: I don’t write for the show.
TenguPhule
Abortion ban: Iowa legislature passes nation’s most restrictive bill
Non-paywall link
raven
@Baud: I’m not talking abut TV.
TenguPhule
@raven:
Its well-hidden.
Baud
@raven: But I was.
NotMax
@raven
Reminded of when Idi Amin raised a ruckus by claiming Great Britain was about to launch a naval invasion of Uganda, any day now.
When someone publicly raised the point that Uganda is a land-locked country, Amin’s response was (paraphrasing from memory), “Just goes to show how stupid the British are.”
Baud
Speaking of Afghanistan, a photographer died in a terrorist attack. WaPo put up some of his pictures and they are very nice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/01/a-life-in-images-remembering-afghan-photojournalist-shah-marai/
danielx
Read about Cambridge Analytica shutting down earlier and my first thought was “big whoop, they’ll be doing business under another name in a week”.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: British tried, Russians tried, why did we think that our adventure would end differently?
schrodingers_cat
@danielx: Us colonial types hear that accent and we are then ready to do anything for them.
ETA: What else explains Sully?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
Don’t worry, he’s not going to get it. Is that Messer in a vulnerable district?
Aleta
From the WaPo article linked by Baud at 61:
Steve in the SFO
@schrodingers_cat: manifest destiny
Gravenstone
@TenguPhule: To which the Nobel committee will politely accept the nomination paperwork, close the office door, have a good laugh then shred and burn it.
gene108
@debbie:
Set the narrative early and often. Reality will follow.
Works for conservatives, they have been doing it for decades.
efgoldman
@Gravenstone:
How do you say “Christ, what an asshole” in Norwegian?
mad citizen
@TenguPhule: How to be tactful about this (probably can’t)–the Indiana primary is next Tuesday and Messer of one of three R’s running, all of whom are in a contest to see who can wrap their lips the tightest around you know who/what. Messer just jumped into the lead.
I early voted last Saturday. There are five D’s running for my district (Sen. Donnelly is not opposed); and for my County Council there were 8 running for 7 slots. I think those were the only real choices on the D side.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Uh, yeah. I don’t see a Trump Nobel happening. Evah.
Platonailedit
@TenguPhule: Can’t wait for the twitler’s and his treasonous thugs’ reactions when they nominate the koreans.
gene108
@NotMax:
Where has Joshua Geltzer been the last 35 years?
Republicans have been ignoring laws they don’t like for decades. If they followed the law Iran-Contra would not have been a thing, we would not have tortured prisoners 15 years ago, and ignoring the law is what Trump has done his whole life.
What an idiot.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Kristus, hva et røvhull
NotMax
@Elizabelle
“We will certainly give the application for nomination all the consideration it is due.”
jl
Huh, looks like after Cobb resigned to reduce risk of getting sanctioned or worse if he goes in direction Trump wants (if I am reading between the lines correctly) the WH has retroactively decided that he is a loser and was fired for generally sucking at everything. I think I’ve seen that before.
Mike in NC
@TenguPhule: Fucking Congressional toadies lining up to blow Fat Bastard’s tiny pecker. Film at 11.
efgoldman
@jl:
I can’t believe the new guy (who defended Bill Clinton) didn’t get a MONSTER retainer up front. Do you think Cobb or Dowd ever got paid a nickel?
NotMax
(Does best Tevye impression.)
On the one hand Maddow and O’Donnell on MSNBC, on the other hand the Maisie fest on TCM.
Decisions, decisions.
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Hockey on NBC Sports Network. Problem solved.
Bidi bidi bidi boom
NotMax
@efgoldman
Not even if it was the only thing being broadcast. Not no way, not no how.
danielx
@mad citizen:
Commentary in the local paper today about how apparently everybody in the world besides the three candidates is a liberal.
I know you are but what am I….lather, rinse, repeat.
ETA: all three are gold plated assholes, not that this comes as any surprise to anyone. Joe Donnelly is nobody’s idea of a perfect Democratic senator, but nobody who would be is ever going to be elected as senator in this benighted state. Evan Bayh redux…
jl
@efgoldman: Another reading between the lines of Cobb’s statements is that he decided to leave before he was only employable by mob bosses who were ready to smoke the local DA if things didn’t always go their way.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: I don’t know, the areas in California that were affected by the fires and subsequent flooding got Federal disaster relief. I don’t think Trump will ever carry California.
mad citizen
I just replied to two trumpov tweets, a first for me. Why did the small chance he could read it feel so good? In one I asked him if he is not reading the daily briefs, why are they still producing them?
Jay C
@efgoldman:
“Eh. Trump.”
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
You know the Norwegian committee in charge of approving Nobel Peace Prize awards won’t listen to a committee of self-appointed Republican congress members, right?
efgoldman
@J R in WV:
They’ll nod politely and mock them in Norwegian.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
That is not even close. They are interested in money yes, but a lot of that interest is in what they can do with it. Much of which is not healthy for large groups of people, in one way or another.
efgoldman
@NotMax:
raven, izzat you?
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: I could write a letter to the committee nominating Baud for the fucking award. It would get the same consideration. Trump actually has a better chance. Odds are that the Norskis believe that he would wear pants. With Baud….?
mad citizen
@danielx: Yes, Donnelly doesn’t excite me–though I do like him much better than Evan Bayh–but will vote for him and hope he wins.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Well fucking duh, ya think it might be?
I wonder if it’s because they had no fucking clue, because who issued the executive order, no one in the WH knows how to make it happen, no one in the WH knows who is supposed to know who knows how to make it happen, etc, etc.
Elizabelle
I want to take a moment and say how sad I am about the C-130 crash this afternoon, just after takeoff from Savannah. Owned by the Puerto Rico National Guard; possibly 9 on board. Somehow even sadder: it was on its final scheduled military flight. Was on its way to somewhere in Arizona, where it was to be decommissioned. Had been used for weather reconnaissance over the years; also a lot of work with transport and relief after the hurricane.
As if Puerto Ricans are not struggling enough this year, this news is so sad. Prayers for the families and communities.
Savannah local paper coverage: 9 killed in Port Wentworth military plane crash
CNN has stories too.
schrodingers_cat
Is anyone watching The Americans. After last year’s snoozefest, it has picked up this season. Paige is still annoying.
Platonailedit
A lesson for cole’s critters?
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
“Kristus, hva et røvhull”
or
Donald Trump and his political party.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
The Academy should be focusing on stripping Aung San Suu Kyi’s medal from her.
Patricia Kayden
@NotMax: Funny that you don’t hear much about drones after President Obama left office. Used to be one of the excuses to hate him, according to some on the left.
Amir Khalid
@TenguPhule:
Trump is less likely to win the Nobel Peace Prize than either Sister or the Girl.
MomSense
Just watched the new John Mullaney special on Netflix. It’s very funny and his way of explaining our current political situation is really clever.
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
I have to catch up on the episodes I missed last season. It seemed like real life intrigues overshadowed the show last season.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
I am Nobelist Yellow
raven
@Elizabelle: There is footage of it going almost straight down right before it hit.
https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/watch-video-captures-fatal-military-plane-crash-in-savannah/77-548088070
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA: California still has a few Republican representatives, doesn’t it?
TenguPhule
@J R in WV:
Who can tell these days?
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: I gave up on the last season, it was a snooze fest. Just watch the last episode of the last season to get the continuity.
Cheryl Rofer
Things are going about as you might expect with Giuliani in charge.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
On our way home tonight, a coyote ran across in front of our car. I live in a city, for pity sake.
My library talk went well. :-)
ETA: Also, I’m seeing on twitter that Giuliani just told Hannity that Trump paid Cohen back the $130K.
Elizabelle
@raven: I saw that footage. Impressed with the coolness and empathy of those watching.
And you have been on a C-130. Way cool.
I think this one was 60 years old, or older? I’d guessed they were Viet Nam era vintage … PR National Guard commander quoted that they have the oldest planes.
I wondered if this one might have been destined for one of the AZ flight museums, Pima maybe??
J R in WV
@TenguPhule:
Come on, they’re Scandanavian socialists!! Not even mitteleuropean democratic-conservatives.
NotMax
@J R in WV
Congress bozos will end up sending it to Normay.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I just searched on his name in Netflix and it brought up dozens of comedians, but nothing more recent than 2015 for him in particular. Any tips on what it is actually called so I can try again?
edit: never mind. I just googled his name and netflix and it came up with kid gorgeous. Will watch it later.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: The Norwegians dealt with their fascists in 1945. They lived it.
On another note, I want to reiterate that I side with the people who don’t look for the cloud around every silver lining. I get that some of you are scared of what may happen. I am too. Jebus, who wouldn’t be? If you purely focus on the negative, you will only see that. And the lurkers who read what we write will only see the negative. Fuck if I know if our comments influence them, but, as a former soldier, predicting disaster does fuck all for morale.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): You just did not see the roadrunner. It instigated.
How went the book appearance? Yea you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Hell, I have jumped out of C-130s.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you. Agree with you. Deer in the headlights is not a good look here.
Don’t demoralize those who are hanging on by you know not how slender a thread of hope.
Mueller and DOJ and a lot of the dreaded government bureaucrats are way smarter than Trump and his hooligans; we have helpers in the shadows we do not see.
Further, I’d guess the Supreme Court reads its share of history. They may get some crucial cases before them; history will be watching them, too. Not everyone is as awful a nihilist and Trump and his core cronies.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: There was “tremendous pressure” on Trumpov simply because…Comey wouldn’t tell him he wasn’t a target of the investigation? And so Trumpov had no other way, no other tools in the toolbox, no other arms in the arsenal…except to fire Comey? And then go on live TV and admit he did it because Comey wouldn’t end the investigation?
Rudy, go ahead, pull the other one. I’ll wait.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I just watched his SNL monologue and it was excellent.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Willingly? Wow.
WaPost had the best reporting.
J R in WV
@Elizabelle:
There’s a squadron of C-130s based here in CRW, we see them flying often to keep everyone’s hours in the air up for payroll purposes, and to have an active log-book. They do touch-and-goes when there isn’t a commercial flight active coming in or heading out.
CRW airport is three mountain tops pushed into the valley between them to create a large flat spot. But it’s still a mountain top, and so is more like a carrier landing than most airports. Except holding still, as opposed to bobbing up and down and trying to hold a steady course in a running sea.
Pilots need to be very familiar with it to land here in the dark or in stormy weather.
That crash in Savannah, that was pretty bad, like a load shifted or something, then straight down. Like that big cargo plane that crashed on takeoff in Afganistan some time back… when the cargo slid back, causing a stall that wasn’t recoverable.
Mike in NC
@schrodingers_cat: Great show, but final season. Too many shows hang on for too long.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Thanks! I just pulled it up and left it open in a tab so I can listen to it later tonight when I’m too tired to watch TV.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Cynicism and learned helplessness are powerful drugs. Lots of people are good and decent. Let’s get them to the polls. In states like mine, let’s help people get the ID that they need. We can have a wave this November if we work for it.
Mnemosyne
@Cheryl Rofer:
A criminal suspect is entitled to be assured by investigators that he’s not really a suspect? What?
Elizabelle
@J R in WV: Very interesting re the CRW airport. I am impressed by all the safe flights in and out of treacherous airports that we take for granted, military and civilian.
I never heard what might have caused that terrible crash (Mississippi?) that killed 15 Marines and a sailor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: I have a set of wings saying I did it. One exit from a C-141, you simply walk out of those. I prefer actually jumping.
schrodingers_cat
@Mike in NC: This season is much better though!
Steve in the SFO
@J R in WV: flew in and out of CRW once in college. Never made that mistake again!
Amir Khalid
@Cheryl Rofer:
That baffles me. Giuliani was a top federal prosecutor — per Wikipedia, he was US Attorney for SDNY. My education in American criminal law came via a TV set, and even I know that there is not a right to know if one is being investigated; that a prosecutor may well have good reason in a particular situation not to tell a person that.
SgrAstar
@J R in WV: when I was in grad school, one of my committee members showed me the letter he received from the Nobel Prize committee, asking him to recommend a collaborator who was obviously on the NP- Physics short list. It was really cool, and the stationery was incredible. The process: solemn, serious. Yay science! I know that the science prizes are not awarded in the same process as the Peace Prizes…but there is a real depth of purpose there. The repulsive preznit does. not. stand. a. chance.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
How is Keaton?
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
As I wrote late last nite, the RWNJ do not have magickal powers to cloud men’s minds. STOP COWERING
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: We have overperformed in, if not won, every special since assmonkey got elected.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Keaton is having one of those days where he pukes on everything, but is otherwise fine. Annie is our kitty who had to get the lion cut because her coat got really matted when her pemphigus flared up. She’s feeling pretty good, except that the third cat (Charlotte) keeps trying to corner her and hiss at her. I think Charlotte is going to have to be locked back up in the bedroom until G gets home from work and can help me supervise them.
JR
You missed a prime opportunity for a Wire reference.
Procopius
@Baud: Why wouldn’t it have aired? Have you forgotten it’s fiction? Do you realize we can still have episodes about Vietnam? You do understand that “24” was fiction, too, right? Dick Cheney didn’t.
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Rudi was always a bully. Probably a good quality for a prosecutor, but it was crap for a mayor.
Omnes Omnibus
@Procopius: Have you ever been anyone but an asshole?
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: Not a good quality for a prosecutor ever.
Mart
@TenguPhule: Think they represent Russia not California.
Steeplejack (phone)
@MJS, @Baud:
Yeah, Pirates. I had no idea who was playing and went by the e-mail sent to me by the less baseball-centric person in the couple that invited me. But it was a good game, and the Nats got a win.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Elizabelle: The book appearance went pretty well, I think. Only eight attendees but I sold four books, so that’s good. And I had a good time.